BackThe urban voter apathy myth
Popular perception is that while urban voters are quick to express their angst, they are not so forthcoming to walk the talk by voting
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Later this week, Delhi will vote for a new government. A lot is at stake in this election. Not only does it pit two perennial rivals, the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), it will also be a mandate for the disruptive power of Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Most predict that it will be the most impressive political debut. AAP’s presence has turned the electoral dynamic on its head by transforming it from the traditional two-way face-off to a multi-polar contest for dominance of the 70-member assembly.
Also at stake is the myth of the apathetic urban voter. Popular perception is that the urban voter, dominated by the middle class, suffers from apathy and is hence a reluctant voter. In other words, while they are quick to express their angst (as in the case of the agitation against corruption and the rape and murder of a girl in Delhi last December), they are not so forthcoming to walk the talk by voting.
This dubious urban legend got cast in stone when three months after the audacious 26/11 attack by Pakistan-based terrorists, more than one in two voters of Mumbai failed to cast their vote in the municipality polls. Worse, the turnout in South Mumbai, which took the brunt of the attacks and whose citizens had come out on the streets to protest against the inadequate security, was 37.4%.
But last week a Bangalore-based non-profit has given us sufficient cause for a rethink. It found, based on pilot studies, that due to errors the voter lists in Delhi were overstated by nearly a fifth—19% to be precise. The study, a wake-up call for the Election Commission of India (EC), says the errors have arisen because of the inclusion of voters who have died, shifted or cannot be traced. The so-called phantom voters add up to 2.3 million names, overstating the registered voters estimated at 12.3 million.
The Proper Urban Electoral (PURE) study, undertaken by Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based non-profit organization that promotes citizens’ participation in urban local government, claims that this is an urban phenomenon.
One obvious inference is that the turnout is obviously understated. If you reduce the voter base by a fifth, you are conversely increasing the turnout. It may not be enough to reverse our perceptions of apathetic voters of South Mumbai, but it would severely dent the general perception about all urban voters.
And this is important, not just in the forthcoming assembly election, but also the general election due in the next six months. Urban constituencies are estimated at around 150 (there are others including a Mint columnist who pegs it at a little above 50) and were critical in returning the Congress twice to power.
The 2011 Census revealed that the growth in the number of towns in the last decade spurted by over 50%. In fact in some states such as Kerala, urbanization spiked from a rate of growth of 26% in the decade ended 2001 to 47.7% in 2011. To be sure, this includes census towns, large villages that mimic the demographic characteristics of a town, as opposed to statutory towns that have a municipal administration. On the ground reporting by Mint’s reporters as part of a series reveals that even the political behaviour in these census towns is now beginning to mimic urban India.
The Census using its definition of urbanization estimates that 31.2% of the total population lives in urban centres compared with 27.8% in 2001 and 25.5% in 1991. In other words, almost one in three Indians are urban denizens. Of the 1.21 billion population, 833 million live in rural India while the remaining 377 million reside in urban India.
According to PURE, the key reason for phantom voters is because the emphasis is on making additions to the lists. A former bureaucrat told me it was akin to the estimation of vehicle population in Delhi. Since vehicle owners pay only a one-time fee, there is no way to know how many vehicles are actually plying on the roads. In all likelihood, it is, like the voter base, an overestimate.
But unlike an overestimated vehicle population, an error-prone voter list has the potential for harm. Implicitly, PURE signals as much when it points out that the winning margin in several constituencies was less than the phantom voters on the list. I personally believe this is difficult to pull off today as alert poll agents of political parties would smoke them out. EC is best placed to shed light on this. Despite repeated attempts by a Mint reporter, EC officials did not respond. Hope the institution realizes that silence only compounds perceptions.
Regardless, cleaning up the voter lists across urban India should be pursued on a war footing ahead of the next general election where there is far more at stake. The task for EC is cut out.
Anil Padmanabhan is deputy managing editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics. Comments are welcome at capitalcalculus@livemint.com
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